Intangible. Untouchable. All things to some People. And a laughable concept to everyone else…

Tumbleweed Ahoy!

Jeff Stelling was quite suprised by the new opening titles for ‘Soccer Saturday’
Good Afternoon.

I’ll let you into a little secret.

The Clumpany has been involved in a conspiracy to keep this quiet, but I now feel the time has come to break cover and let the world know what is about to happen.

Because it’s serious.

Deadly serious.

And will change our lives and the lives of countless billions around the world.

Forever.

Are you nervous about this impending news?

Perhaps a little bit excited?

Well you damn well should be because THE ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE IS BACK!

BACK, I TELL YOU!

BAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!

The most over-hyped thing in the entire history of Creation has been charging towards us quicker than you can say “The Emperor has no clothes”.

And now it has arrived!

There were rumours that Sky and BT Sport we’re going to break records in excessively promoting the new season, but I can’t say that I have noticed any unrelenting and nauseating advertising whatsoever.

No matter. Now the season is upon us we can look forward to

a series of televised game that are all portrayed as being akin to a Champions League Final

commentators and pundits who keep telling us that they have ‘never seen the like’ of the drama on offer

unashamed revelling in obscene yet hilarious transfer fees

industrial quantities of managerial press conferences and player interviews that manage to make their Scottish equivalents look highbrow

ever-more trivial statistics as a means of filling time and giving the freak show some ‘meaning’

… And of course some rather tepid actual football!

Football which may be of a higher standard than that played in Scotland, but which lags some way behind that on offer in La Liga and elsewhere.

But of course Sky and BT will never admit that. Not when they have paid out such huge amounts for the broadcasting rights.

Just as we criticise the Scottish media for doing-down our game, so the UK media takes things to the other extreme. And then some.

All the turds are polished in the English Premier League. And with the most expensive cleaning products that you can find.

Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy watching the EPL. There is a real sense of occasion, history and drama about a fixture like Manchester United v Liverpool. And a good number of the games can be very entertaining indeed.

But a lot of them can be quite sterile. And not just in mid-table or at the bottom.

The idea of watching multi-billionaire-backed Chelsea playing Manchester City strikes me as just about the most uninspiring prospect in all of world football.

The Clumany will certainly watch quite a bit of EPL action this season, but is unlikely to be gripped by it.

If anything, I am more likely to enjoy watching the second and third-tier games, which have a certain kind of ‘authenticity’ that the Scottish game has in spades.

And the end-of-season playoffs in England are nearly always a great spectacle.

I suspect I might feel slightly more drawn to the EPL if the disconnect between the (astonishingly expensive) ‘product’ and the broadcasters’ loonball hype wasn’t so enormous.

Because that’s the key thing about the English Premier League. It may be the ‘richest league in the world’, but it seems utterly bankrupt in so many other ways.